I was at this party a few weekends ago at which a friend asked me if I listened to music while I run.

Now, let me digress for a second. Because I feel like every single runner I meet is either a Luddite purist or incapable of going on even a simple two-mile jog without having Tool drilling into his/her skull at volume level 14. No one is in-between. Which I don’t get. Because sometimes you need Enrique to move you along, and sometimes you just need to silently judge other runnersin silence, you know?

Anyhow.

“Not all the time,” I responded.

“Well, don’t you go CRAZY? What do you think about?” she asked.

Ironically, her question itself has made me go crazy, because now when I’m running all I can think about is, “Huh. What AM I thinking about?” and now my flow is totally gone. (Thanks a lot, party-friend-lady. Jerkface.) It’s like when you for whatever reason start thinking about breathing and suddenly realize that you can’t do it correctly anymore, and now maybe it won’t be voluntary anymore and you’ll have to think about breathing until the day you die. Holy s**t, that would suck, wouldn’t it?